Mental Health Needs of Homeless Youths: Awareness and Engagement with Services in the UK

Mental Health Needs of Homeless Youths(aged-16-24) and their engagement with Mental Health Service
Provisions.
Research Questions
What do young homeless people aged (16-24) know about mental health services that are available through the
public (NHS) and Voluntary Sectors?
How do the homeless youths engage with mental health services?
Abstract
There is a significant literature which explores the links between youth homelessness and mental illness. Given
the rise in homelessness in developed countries including UK, it is important to understand the needs of this
group as they can be the most vulnerable to mental health illnesses. The causes of youth homelessness can be
varied and interdependent, with a large proportion of these young people, due to suffering from domestic
violence, sexual or emotional abuse, addiction to drugs or alcohol, release from prison and leaving care. This
research aims at understanding the targeted services provided to these youths to determine their level of
awareness and engagement with specific reference to Mental health services
Secondary data can provide a baseline by which researchers can gather significant information on a given
research topic. Secondary data analysis can be defined as the analysis of data or information already present or
collected from other sources such as Journals, Government policy papers, working papers and reports by other
institutions. When using large databases or library catalogue such as Nelson, l will choose the search string
carefully. The common approach is to use Boolean operators. Boolean operators, include terms like AND, OR
and NOT, can increase the chances of identifying the results. The key search terms used in this research may
include: (Mental Health OR Mental illness) AND (Homeless OR Youths) AND (Youth OR Young People OR
Young Adults) The articles will be selected using the PRISMA flow diagram and the methodological validity
assessed using the CASP (Critical Skills Appraisal Programme) tool. An analysis of the study themes and sub-
themes will be carried out to answer the proposed research questions.
Methodology
This research will be done using secondary data. Secondary data refers to information that was collected by
someone else other than the researcher. The source of the secondary data can be journal articles, information
collected through government departments, census, or data collected from academic books. All these records
and data were collected for some other research. In the present research work, the literature was obtained from
different searches conducted through the catalogue and database of University of Northampton, Other than
that, several journal articles were obtained through Google Scholar. The search term used for the research was
youth homelessness strategies for mental health and youth homelessness policies awareness. The results
obtained from the research were research articles based on the issue of homelessness and major issues of
homelessness. However, the research subject was mental health needs of homeless youths and the engagement

of youths with the homeless or mental health services. Therefore, due to the results, it was necessary to hand
pick articles for literature review. The research articles were selected by reading the abstract of the research.
Database Search
Google Books
Search Term*Youth homelessness strategies for mental health in UK*
Number of Hits= 8,160 hits
Relevant books: 4
The abstract of all the books was studied for the research, and total 4 books were selected for further research.
They are, “homelessness and social policy”, “Understanding housing policy”, “Mental Health and Emerging
Adulthood among Homeless young people”.
Google Scholar
Number of hits= 80,000 hits Any Year
Advanced search (journal articles from year 2012-2018)= 16,900
Relevant articles: Keyword: *Mental health needs of the youth and the engagement of the youth with the
homelessness services in UK*
Number of Hits: 17,100
Advanced Search: 7, 850 hits (Journal Articles from year 2014-2018)
Nelson
Name of Database: Nelson University Online database
Keyword: homelessness policies awareness UK
Number of hits: 10,656
Extended research: The inclusion and the exclusion criteria included the date of publication (2005
onwards) and relevance of abstracts
Extended research
Number of Hits: 5,342
Peer reviewed articles: 4,154 articles
The selected articles are

Name of writer Title of article
Fallaize, R., Seale, J., Mortin, C., Armstrong, L., &
Lovegrove, J. (2017).
Dietary intake, nutritional status and mental wellbeing
of homeless adults in Reading, UK.
Dorney-Smith, S., Hewett, N., & Burridge, S. (2016). Homeless medical respite in the UK: A needs
assessment for South London.
H WHITEFORD, M. and SIMPSON, G., 2016. "There is still a perception that homelessness is a
housing problem": devolution, homelessness and
health in the UK.
Other research articles were also shortlisted through online research on web portals. When these journal articles
were explored, several subthemes were identified, which were later used to develop the subheadings of the
research.
The researcher will view the abstract of the research and determine, if the journal articles are relevant to the
research sections of the dissertation. These articles were selected for the research as they had relevant
information regarding the healthcare policies to address the mental health issue in the UK. The research papers
were not selected before the year 2000. When the research term, homelessness in youth is selected, more than
40 hits occurred. Therefore, the result was refined by using key terms, strategy homelessness in the
organization. Several books occurred in the search results; however, these books were not recent and;
therefore, did not contain relevant information.
In recent years, several research articles have been published regarding homelessness. It is due to the fact that
the scholars have identified homelessness as a serious social issue. Several researchers have explored
homelessness with a local perspective. Going through journal articles, it was identified that there is a growing
number of homelessness in London, due to high rates in property prices. Several research articles have explored
the subject and proposed strategies, which can be used to address the social problem. The researcher has
identified these strategies and used them in critical literature review section. Secondary data will be collected
from Journal articles such as Google scholar, Google books and Nelson Northampton University Electronic
Library Online Search. Different keywords were used for exploring different journal articles. It is important for
youths to be aware of homelessness policies and to remain engaged with them. Another keyword used for the
research is the strategies of the government to deal with homelessness.

Literature Review
Author Title of article or journal
Fox, A. M., Mulvey, P., Katz, C. M., & Shafer, M. S.
(2016)
Untangling the relationship between mental health
and homelessness among a sample of arrestees
Kazloff et al. (2016). "Housing First" for Homeless Youth With Mental
Illness.
Keuroghlian, A.S., Shtasel, D., & Bassuk, E.L. (2015 Out on the Street: A Public Health and Policy Agenda
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth
Who Are Homeless
Rhoades, H., Winetrobe, H., & Rice, E. (2016) Pet Ownership among Homeless Youth: Associations
with Mental Health, Service Utilization and Housing
Status
Saddiccha, S., Linden, I., & Reinhadt, K. (2014). Physical and Mental Health Issues among Homeless
Youth in British Columbia, Canada: Are they
Different from Older Homeless Adults?
Author Title of article or Journal
Abramovich, I. A. (2012) No safe place to go-LGBTQ youth homelessness in
Canada: Reviewing the literature
Burns et al. (2015) Mental Health Disorders in Young Urban Sexual
Minority Men
Choi, S. K., Wilson, B. D., Shelton, J., & Gates, G. J.
(2015)
Serving our youth 2015: The needs and experiences of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning
youth experiencing homelessness.
Bender, K., Brown, S.M., Thompson, S.J., Ferguson,
K.M., and Langenderfer, L. (2014)
Multiple Victimizations Before and After Leaving
Home Associated With PTSD, Depression, and
Substance Use Disorder Among Homeless Youth
Edidin, J. P., Ganim, Z., Hunter, S. J., & Karnik, N. S.
(2012)
The mental and physical health of homeless youth: a
literature review.